AMHERST — Revised bus routes meant to get Amherst’s elementary students to school on time could launch Nov. 30, the superintendent told the School Committee last week, as parents push back on proposed earlier pickups and a roughly 60% cut in stops.
Superintendent E. Xiomara Herman told the Amherst School Committee at its Oct. 27 meeting that an adjustment in routes, which remains in the planning stages as feedback is gathered from families, could be formalized by the end of the month.
“I think we’re on a good path,” Herman said. “I’m hoping as we can continue to work through this, that we get to a place of not just efficiency, but I want to make it clear it’s about getting children to and from home.”
While F.W. Kuzmeskus Inc. of Gill has taken over 14 of the 18 contracted routes this school year, the routes the schools run in-house have dropped from eight or nine last year to four this year because the district has lost drivers. This has meant buses arriving late at Amethyst Brook and Crocker Farm schools for the 8:10 a.m. start times, and Chestnut Street Academy, for its 9:10 a.m. start time.
“It’s getting better, not great, where we’re increasing the number of buses that are there at 9:10,” Herman said.
“There is no intent to change the school start times,” Herman said.
Routes for the Amherst Regional Middle School and High School are also affected. The same buses bring students to those schools after they are done with the elementary school routes.
Herman said the district is combining certain routes based on whether drivers are available, but otherwise no changes proposed have yet been implemented.
The initial plan is to trim the 600 stops down to 235 stops, though all kindergartners will get picked up at their homes, and the district has consulted with transportation experts at the University of Massachusetts.
The routes are also complicated by transfer buses that bring some children between schools and the vocational transportation that brings students to Smith Vocational and Franklin Tech.
Occasional doubling up routes, when a driver calls in sick, is also leading to delays and occasional overcrowding, such as on one recent day when there was no after-school programming, which meant many more children on board.
“We are truly, truly sorry (for these overages),” Herman said.
What she has heard most from parents is they want to know when their children will be getting home.
Deb Leonard, who chairs the Amherst School Committee, said driver shortage, along with the cost of the contract, was factored into the decision to hire Kuzmeskus as the bus company.
But committee member Laura Jane Hunter said she is confused about how so many problems have come up, and why district employees and families have to fix the problems.
“I don’t understand why the burden has fallen on families to name where the buses should go,” Hunter said. “It feels to me like the entire lift should be coming from the bus company, minus the four drivers we’re short.”
Herman said it’s common practice for the school district to develop the bus routes for a private contractor to deal with the nuances involved in picking up and dropping off children.
“Our intent is not to upheave everyone and cause harm, our intent is really to make sure we’re getting children to school safely,” Herman said.
Committee members suggested asking the school unions to see what incentives can be offered to staff and whether training might be available to get more bus drivers.
“We have buses, we don’t have drivers, we need more people to drive buses,” Herman said.
Even as families are invited to various listening sessions to provide input, they have created their own clearinghouse of information at https://arps-bus-route-change.web.app
In written public comment to the Amherst School Committee, one parent described families as “fuming” over the situation. The letters to the committee express concern with the idea that children who live within 1.5 miles of a school would no longer be picked up, instead having to walk on possibly unsafe routes or be dropped off by their caregivers.
Other letters noted that at Amethyst Brook, the new drop-off time could be at 7:48 a.m., 12 minutes before the building opens, and a full 22 minutes before the first class, even after some children ride the buses for 30 minutes or longer.
“Earlier pickup times and less convenient bus stops may lead more families to drive their children to school instead,” wrote Amethyst Brook parent Yiyi Luo. “This would increase traffic congestion around the school, create additional safety risks during drop-off, and add stress to families and staff alike.”
“None of this makes any sense,” wrote Andrea Butterfield, another Amethyst Brook parent. “The kids spend longer on the bus and longer at school. The schedules are ridiculous.”
Chestnut Street
At the Chestnut Street Academy, where Amherst sixth graders are being educated in a wing of the Amherst Regional Middle School, officials have adapted to the regular late buses by extending homeroom from 9 a.m. to 9:10 a.m. Attendance is then taken as homeroom ends.
Assistant Principal Rich Ferro said this new 10-minute buffer has meant that 90% of the buses arriving at the school are dropping off students on time. Immediately after homeroom, students begin their first specials class of the day.
From the perspective of teachers at the school, Ferro said there have been some bumps in the road, but the experience has been largely positive, aside from the challenges with the bus schedule.
“I think things are going really well,” Ferro said.
Still, staff is discussing a change for the 2027-28 school year that could allow specials teachers to be at the school for the full day, rather than leaving the school midway to spend the remainder of their day at Crocker Farm School. Ferro noted that the school, with 134 students, doesn’t have enough enrollment for specialists to be there full time.
The school is offering a language exploratory, with Spanish and Latin, and is also offering an engineering section and a chorus. But a full exploratory language rotation, as originally designed, has not been implemented. Each homeroom will experience all four of those classes, Ferro said.
Ferro said the bathroom situation is better than anticipated.
“In terms of access to the bathroom, we have had very few issues that have
come up in terms of there not being enough bathroom space or negative interactions that have come up as the result of a shared bathroom,” Ferro said.
Other business
Herman said that there will be on-site visits by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education from Nov. 16 to 20. Families are being sought to participate in focus groups.
Across the three elementary schools, there are 993 students, 27% of whom are identified as having disabilities, 7% who are English language learners and 5% who have 504 plans.
Second grade is the largest class with 164 students, which Herman said will be a very large sixth-grade class in the future and may not fit in the space at Chestnut Street.
Fourth grade is at 141, up from 95 when they were in third grade last year, showing how enrollment can change significantly from year to year.
At Amethyst Brook, there are 550 students, which is 25 short of capacity, and 309 are at Crocker Farm, including preschool.
